As the Christmas season descends on the residents of Charleston, the children get a personal phone call from Santa Claus himself.

The Charleston Parks and Recreation Department is creating a hotline to Santa to allow children to talk with Santa on the phone to tell him what they want for Christmas by filling out a form.

Kim Wargo, the recreation supervisor, said the calls will take place around 6 p.m. on Dec. 4.

“Children can write in letters to Santa Claus with what they want for Christmas, and then we have Santa call them later on before Christmas,” Wargo said.

The forms are available online at the Parks and Recreation website, in the department, or letters can just be sent to the department.

“We ask that all the letters be in by Nov. 30 so that Santa has time to review them and know what he wants to talk about with all the kids,” Wargo said.

She said the letters should include something about themselves like a name, phone number, age and family.

“Santa will call them and talk to them for a while,” Wargo said.

Harold Strangeman, a Charleston resident, said he has been making these calls for five years as Santa and he likes the responses of the children he talks too.

“The kids seem to be excited and happy about it,” Strangeman said. “They are usually relatively young children.”

He said both the department and he have received responses from parents saying the children really enjoyed the conversation.

Strangeman said he will read the letters and will go off of the information he is given.

“I try to make it a little more personal and ask things like ‘how is your work with the flute going?’ and stuff like that,” Strangeman said.

Wargo said she likes hearing the children talk to Santa.

“It’s really cool, and they get really excited sometimes, and they can’t believe it,” Wargo said. “They are like ‘Oh my God, am I really talking with Santa?”’

Strangeman said he often will call a family with multiple children and will sometimes forget that there is more than one child.

“I’ll say Merry Christmas, bye-bye, and they’ll stop me and ask if I’m going to talk to their sibling,” Strangeman said.

He said it is cute how they look out for each other during that time.

“Sometimes (siblings) are worst enemies, and other times they are best buddies,” Strangeman said.

He said one thing he does not do is promise any gifts, instead he said he will try.

“It’s a really cute and fun idea,” Wargo said. “It helps get kids in the spirit of Christmas; it helps the fantasy become more of a reality.”

Samantha McDaniel can be reached at 581-2812 or slmcdaniel@eiu.edu.